


strange new kind.

by holdingnotoyou



Series: literature-inspired work. [2]
Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blurryface Era, Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Trench Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-22
Updated: 2019-05-22
Packaged: 2020-03-09 11:13:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18915802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/holdingnotoyou/pseuds/holdingnotoyou
Summary: Eyes closed, he falls.





	strange new kind.

**Author's Note:**

> > "I’m a strange new kind of inbetween thing aren’t I / not at home with the dead nor with the living."
> 
> \-- Sophocles
> 
> this is random and mostly a vent piece. sorry if it doesn't make sense. maybe it's not supposed to. 
> 
> it's a transitional piece between blurry and trench.

 

 

Eyes closed, he falls. 

He doesn't remember falling, he remembers scrambling across the linoleum floor as he cowers from the growing shadows in the corner of his room. In the dark, they grow bigger and stronger. In the dark, they cast across him until their fingers tangle around his neck and press--choke until he's gasping and pleading, until his lips are blue and he's praying for forgiveness. Eyes closed, he can feel the wave of death coming on. Eyes closed, he can see the light at the end of the dark. A snarled expression, nails digging into the sides of his throat, bared teeth. "What a strange new kind of thing you are," Blurry murmurs into his ear, teeth grazing the lobe of his ear before there's a sharp crack and suddenly Blurry's gone.

Suddenly, everything is gone. 

The fall is both forever and a moment. 

He screams, throat raw as his eyes open and the air around him swirls in darkness for a few long moments. He doesn't notice he's falling through the clouds until he's trying to grasp out for the white that dissipates in his hand as his fingers touch it. He screams and screams, watching as the black disappears from his hands and is swallowed into the night sky. The familiar choking sensation is there for a few long moments until the paint is splattering against the sky once again, dissipating off of his body with an ease. He wonders if it's been that easy this entire time. Maybe, he thinks, this has been the answer the whole time. Jumping off of the edge of a building could've rid him of the black paint long ago, when he was pleading in the mirror and scrubbing his hands raw. 

Eyes open, he lands.

It should hurt a lot more than it does. The fall should shatter his bones, he knows, leave him lifeless--at the very least, paralyzed--but a few deep breaths and he can pick his head up. A few deep breaths and he can glance around the concrete courtyard. A few deep breaths and there's a torch at the end of the courtyard, there's a man stood watching his frame lay on the ground. Deep eyes study him, a bandana pulled over the bottom half of his face, and it's a face that Tyler knows. It's a face that Tyler would be able to place if he saw the entire thing. Who is he?

He doesn't have enough time to think about the man before a shadow casts over his body, moonlight replaced by darkness and as he glances up, he's met with a red robe that flows along with the evening breeze. No words are spoken, there is no reaction from the veiled man above him other than a crouch of the man and pale, cool fingers pressing against his throat. He opens his mouth to speak but no words come out, opens his mouth to scream but the paint on his throat silences him better than any fist around his neck could. He pulls himself up off of the ground as the veiled man stands, _Nico_ , his mind tells him, _This is Nico_. 

Dusting himself off, Tyler stares at Nico for a moment before falling into step behind the man as Nico crosses the courtyard, steps beside the veiled man without sparing a glance at him. It takes Tyler a moment to realize that Nico can't see the man, that he doesn't see the flickering yellow flame that sits on the top of the torch or the yellow tape that sits around his chest. Around his knee. Why does his knee stand out? Brown eyes meet brown eyes as Tyler passes him, and his heart yearns to be touched by the calloused hands holding the torch. Instead, he keeps walking. Instead, he disappears into the night, falling into line behind Nico.

Instead, eyes closed, he finds himself on a small cot pressed into the corner of a shabby apartment with a reminder that tomorrow, he needs to meet Nico by the Vials to begin. _Begin what_ , Tyler wants to ask, _begin where?_ Nico's face answers no questions, the way he moves is stiff and unanswerable. Tyler doesn't ask anything from the man. Tyler climbs into the bed, lets the door close with a click behind Nico, and he dreams in yellow. 

Weeks pass, months pass, and hope is never lost even as he is taken through hell and back, even as he bows to the Vials and chokes on his own blood from his bitten tongue. He becomes another cog in the machine, falls into line behind Nico, listens to rumors about Clancy, understands that this is the way he must survive. 

He is neither dead, nor is he alive. What a strange place to be, neither at home with the dead nor with the living.

Eyes closed, he waits for yellow to return. 

Eyes closed, he waits for his revival. 


End file.
